We have all known people who habitually act in such a way as to ensure that they are not going to enjoy their lives, even though they are in a position to do so. I'm not talking about people who are struggling to fulfill their basic needs with very little opportunity to succeed. The chronically poor, the chronically mentally ill, those who live in regions where there is little hope for more than a meager existence. I'm talking about those who have their basic needs for food, shelter, companionship and health met but who seem to steer themselves consistently towards unhappiness.
Many of us have been taught to believe that we humans are basically rational: we will pursue our own best interests in a relatively consistent and effective manner. But my experience as a therapist and as a student of human behavior have taught me that we often act in ways that serve to prove that our core beliefs about ourselves are right, even when those beliefs say that we should not be happy.
A woman I'll call Janice came to my office some years ago to work on her longstanding sadness and dissatisfaction with her life which at times made it hard for her to get out of bed. She had persistent thoughts of suicide but had never attempted to kill herself. She worked successfully as a nurse, was married (unhappily) to a passive and critical man who had a very hard time understanding her, and they had three teenaged children. She was brought up in a family of eight children where there was frequent and bitter conflict, physical abuse, and verbal putdowns particularly aimed at Janice: she was ugly, stupid, good-for-nothing and would never be successful at anything.
Not surprisingly, Janice came out of her childhood with strong core beliefs about herself: that she was ugly, stupid, and good-for-nothing and would never be happy. Often her core beliefs operated just outside of her awareness which made them particularly powerful in her life.
During our work together, she came to realize that she actually believed that she was ugly, stupid, good-for-nothing, and would never succeed at anything. In fact, she was none of these things. She came to realize that she had made many decisions in her life which had resulting in proving to herself that what her family told her was true.
She married a man who was very critical of her, a man who, when he drank too much, told her she was ugly and stupid. She had little confidence at work although she was an excellent nurse but she always felt that she was going to or had already made many huge mistakes which would get her fired. As her children grew older, she let them take advantage of her and put her down so she would feel guilty and give in to them. They were quite undisciplined and one of them was getting into trouble as school and with the police. She felt that she was a "terrible parent", giving further proof that she could do nothing right.
She was very unhappy but at least she was right about herself! She actively avoided happiness, and by doing so, she proved that her core beliefs about herself were true.
Working her way out of the hole she had dug for herself was no easy feat. She began to see that she could be happier with her life but that she needed to make some changes. She began standing up to her husband and he became somewhat less critical. She began to have a more realistic view of herself as a nurse: that she was competent and caring. She began to be firmer with her children and less susceptible to their guilt-inducing tirades. She began to see that she could be happy, but she also saw that when she began to feel happy, she became very uncomfortable with that and would go back to her old ways of thinking about herself and would get back to her old patterns with her husband, her children and her co-workers But then she would feel down about that-she had come to believe that she deserved better than to feel down on herself for the rest of her life.
At this point in therapy, she needed help seeing that happiness was not easy for her and that she was indeed afraid of it. What she did was to become aware of her emotional reactions to her moments of happiness. She became aware of her automatic fear of feeling good. When she became aware, then she could talk herself through these times, comforting herself and soothing herself as a good parent does with a frightened child: "you'll be all right, you're scared but it's ok, you'll feel better soon, it's ok to feel good about myself." Oddly enough, she had to practice reassuring herself that feeling happy was not so bad after all.
Janice worked on this hard for several months and became more and more used to feeling happy. She was promoted at work which made her uncomfortable but she worked through it and eventually felt proud of her accomplishments. Her children realized she was standing up for herself and they even complimented her on how she seemed happier! This was very exciting for Janice and also hard to take. But she worked her way through it and got used to it.
So, through a year of working on her fear of happiness, she came to peace with happiness and realized that she was no longer afraid of feeling good.
I've seen many people like Janice struggle with their fear and avoidance of happiness. Through conscious awareness and practice changing their thoughts and actions, they have gotten through this and found that happiness was not so bad after all. Strange but true.
If you or someone you know might have euthymophobia, feel free to consult my website http://www.therapytriangle.com and seriously consider getting some professional help so you can get past this paradoxical and powerful fear.
Dr. Rob Burkham
rob@therapytriangle.com
Robert Burkham, Ph.D.
103 West College Ave., Suite 611
Appleton, WI 54911
920-882-5300
email: rob@therapytriangle.com
http://www.therapytriangle.com
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